Peachtree Building Bearing Green Fruit

Located in the heart of midtown Atlanta, Georgia, 1180 Peachtree was completed in February, 2006. Designed by Pickard Chilton Architects, the 41-story, 670,000 square-foot reinforced concrete office tower was built on a land that was purchased from Woodruff Arts Center and developed by Hines, a major developer from Houston, Texas. The reinforced concrete office tower is sited adjacent to the new home of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and its associated performance hall, allée and gardens. Nearly 50 percent of the site area has been dedicated to public open space.

The development contains a retail space on the first two floors, along with two high-end restaurants located at each end of the building. Floors three through 14 comprise a 1,100 vehicle parking structure that is clad to blend in with the remainder of the building.

The 1180 Peachtree is the tallest building constructed in Atlanta in more than a decade. It was the first high-rise office building in the world to be pre certified for silver status in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Core and Shell Development and the second to be awarded LEED-CS Gold status, satisfying more than 30 green and high-performance requirements.

One goal was to construct a cost-effective curtain-wall system that is energy and space-efficient and provide a unique character to the building. Working with a local curtain-wall manufacturer, the construction and design group decided on a system that puts the structure of the curtain-wall system outside the building. This provided for more space inside the building as well as some shading from the sun. The system also enabled the use of 10-foot, floor to ceiling glass inside all office spaces. A lighted veil extends 120 feet atop the curtain-wall system, creating a distinguished design characteristic while at the same time diminishing the heat-island effect on the building's roof.

The condensed construction schedule dictated that tenant build-out on floors 15 through 41 begin within 12 months of groundbreaking. To accomplish this goal, Turner and Pickard selected reinforced concrete for its advantage of shorter start-up time and faster floor cycle completion. The gravity load carrying system consists of 66-inch wide module joists 72 inches on center. The lateral force resisting system is shear wall frame interaction with 42-inch tapered girders spanning to the exterior columns. High strength concrete of 10,000 psi was used for the supporting columns. Caissons bearing at a depth of 60 feet below the basement level were used for the foundations.